This study investigated the mediating effects of learning a memory strategy on second-graders' performance of a memory task and their self-efficacy for the task. Specifically, second-graders were taught a strategy for organizing words into categories to increase their ability to remember lists of words. Their predictions of how many words they…

The relationships among instrumentality, task value, and intrinsic orientation were investigated among undergraduate students. The sample comprised 207 undergraduates who were participating in a lower-division human development course. Results confirm that endogenous instrumentality is an independent construct, which--although related to task…

The research described in this paper investigates one possible explanation for students' ability or inability to identify fallacious arguments. As students' ability to identify informal reasoning fallacies has been the subject of scant empirical investigation, the current study may broaden our knowledge concerning this phenomenon and locate it in…

This study examines question asking about "causal" relations when students read scientific texts. We examine the influence of the length of causal chains and the knowledge of readers. Students from grades 8 and 12 read two short paragraphs that described natural phenomena. Length of the causal chain linking cause and effect in two key sentences…

Epistemological beliefs, or beliefs about the nature of knowledge and knowing, are currently a target of increased research interest. The present study examined two research questions: (1) how do epistemological beliefs change over time? and (2) what role do gender, ethnicity, SES, and achievement play in their development? The study was…

We investigated a theoretical model including an instructional intervention and systematic processing to account for change in preservice teachers' epistemological beliefs about teaching and learning in mathematics. General and subject-specific epistemological beliefs and systematic processing were assessed in 161 preservice teachers, randomly…

The study of personal epistemology has typically addressed the theories and beliefs that individuals hold about knowledge and knowing, and the way in which such epistemological perspectives are related to academic learning. This qualitative, exploratory case study focuses on the epistemology of instructional practices as interpreted by students in…

This study focuses on the influence of high school students' (10th and 11th grade) epistemological understanding and topic interest on their interpretation of a dual-position expository text about genetically modified food, as well as on the change in their beliefs about the topic. After reading, students were given different tasks: (1) to write…

Previous investigations of the productivity of educational psychologists (Smith et al., 1998 and Smith et al., 2003) have used a points system that defines high productivity as having few co-authors and high authorship placement. Due to the increasingly collaborative nature of educational psychology research (Robinson, McKay, Katayama, & Fan,…

Is adaptive scaffolding effective in facilitating students' ability to regulate their learning of complex science topics with hypermedia? We examined the role of different scaffolding instructional interventions in facilitating students' shift to more sophisticated mental models as indicated by both performance and process data. Undergraduate…

Preservice teachers studied texts about three fundamentally important science concepts. They read versions with no analogy, versions with a simple analogy, and versions with an elaborate analogy. An elaborate analogy is one that consists of text and pictorial components in which similarities between the analog and the target concept are made…

We examined models of individual change and correlates of change in the growth of reading skills in a sample of 40 children from kindergarten through third grade. A broad range of correlates was examined and included family literacy, oral language, emergent reading, intelligence, spelling, and demographic variables. Individual growth curve…

This longitudinal field study examined the relationship between goal orientation and self-regulatory processes in an achievement context. Data was obtained from 132 students over a 10 week period. Results indicated that: (a) learning goal orientation was positively related to how much resources participants allocated to their goals and the degree…

This study investigated the effectiveness of concept mapping used as a learning strategy with students in English as a Second Language classrooms. Seventy-nine ESL students participated in the study. Variables of interest were students' achievement when learning from English-language text, students' reported use of self-regulation strategies…

Longitudinal data (five waves) from large cohorts of 7th grade students in East Germany ("n"=2,119) and West Germany ("n"=1,928) were collected from the start of the reunification of the school systems following the fall of the Berlin Wall. Here we integrate the two major theoretical models of relations between academic self-concept and…